


mingled with all kinds of colors

by zealotarchaeologist



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Other, author taking a lot of worldbuilding liberties. as you do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26341246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zealotarchaeologist/pseuds/zealotarchaeologist
Summary: a few short fics for f@tt sapphic week 2020. won't update every day, sorry! descriptions/warnings will be above each chapter.
Relationships: Belgard/⸢Signet⸣ (Friends at the Table), Gucci Garantine/Clementine Kesh, Hyacinth/Motion, Kal'mera Broun/Valence, Ver'million Blue/Si'dra Balos
Comments: 9
Kudos: 26





	1. rise/fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hyacinth/motion, for the prompt rise/fall. this is about how, no matter what you do for empire, it won't love you back.

Most Elects are born for it. Or chosen for it, at least, raised up and schooled for it, planted and grown in the Garden for their purpose. To be Elect one must have been, in theory, elected for it.

Not so with them. Motion has always been _picky_ , as leadership puts it. Has a habit of making choices that are not exactly state-sanctioned, her Elect among those. And people will complain, but what can they do? It’s Motion, after all. She is Dynamism itself, and she has always been an unpredictable thing.

They are not royalty. Their only living parent is an athlete. A runner, first and foremost, a marathoner with sturdy legs and powerful lungs. An accomplished swimmer as well, and handy with a javelin, but a runner first. Hyacinth does not remember their name, after so long, but they remember being on the track. They were always better at sprinting, and they had asked how anyone could possibly run so long without the burn in their body dragging them down.

They had shrugged. “You move until you can’t possibly move any more. And then you move a little further than that.”

She sees this in them, on the day they meet. A hundred years later they can still remember this day. A military parade. They watch on the sidelines as the machines roll by. She regards them through the eyes of a rotting, dying body, and says in their mind: _Oh, child._ _You and I could run forever_.

Hyacinth is the name of the new plant in the Garden. They roll it over their tongue, trying to make it familiar, _Hi’akinthos_ over and over until the syllables blur into something acceptable for their new life.

The other saplings here are young, even those nearly finished with their training. They are a decade older than the biggest of them, already decorated for their service as a rank and file soldier of Apostolos. They’re not nearly as proud of that as they are the collection of medals for races won. Motion had been there, had watched them, sometimes. Always in the moment of chase, never waiting around for the victory.

They are ready and waiting when the body of her last elect is pulled from the cockpit after a century of service. The skin is thin and pale, the face is sunken. Scales dry and flaking away. And all they can think is how this one had been weak. Had stopped running. They are going to do better.

They do not sleep or eat. Motion attends to those needs. They take no lovers; Motion attends to those needs as well. A tendril pressed to their cheek is not intimacy. It is cold.

Intimacy comes somewhere else.

It comes from the unity of their bodies and purpose as they move, as they fight. Sometimes she is Hyacinth and they are Motion. Sometimes they are one thing. Sometimes they are just fuel for a war machine.

There is a beat. There is a pulse, running through them together. It is honest, and more intimate than any dance.

On one of their first nights as elect they had curled up in the pilot seat of the machine that was her body then, and felt small and tired. The smallness went away, over time. The exhaustion never did.

Deployed far away from anywhere they might have once called home, they close their eyes and think of waving banners in the streets. Motion’s tendrils twined with them. And ask, with no reservation or judgement: “Are you loyal to Apostolos?”

Motion does not pause in thought. She is not capable of pausing. Today they inhabit the frame of a quadrupedal mech, predatory and quick. The rest of the Century is far behind them.

 _As you are loyal to me. I am part of Apostolos. Apostolos is part of me. It is defined by Motion. Change. Violence. Dynamism is the term you prefer._ The ideas rush between them, more impulses and fragments than spoken sentences. What could be more intimate than that? _Apostlos moves, and as long as it moves we are one and the same._

Hyacinth thinks of the homeworld Apostolos, taken by the ever-shifting Branched before they were born. Its surface covered in writhing things. “What happens if it stops moving?”

_It will move. I will make it._

“—nowhere do we see this sacrifice more than in our Black Century, who give their entire lives that we might be safe. That we might conquer. That we might reclaim our home! They give up their glory, that we might all share—"

It’s a warm day, two suns bearing down upon the crowd, the generals sweating in their uniforms. They don’t feel it. Nor the cold. Their only discomfort is at being still.

Hyacinth feels their leg twitch, the urge to stand and start pacing around the podium. It’s hard, for both of them, sitting still so long. And the longer they spend within Motion, the harder it is for them to go without.

She is with them, today, attached to their spine. She spreads down their back and over their shoulders, a frame made in honor or parody of a much older Apostolosian Divine. It doesn’t matter much to Motion. She takes all kind of shapes. Right now she is the electric impulse running down their arms, making them want to wind up for a punch. A lover’s touch. It’s still not the same as being in the cockpit of whatever machine she’s holding together in any given engagement.

Even so, she is all around them, always. She is the power in every Apostolosian machine. The inexorable path of every ship out in space. The turbines, spinning. The whir of the Loop overhead. _At attention, Grand Marshal,_ she says. Ah. The crowd looks to them. It is her turn to speak.

“We are proud to serve.” They answer for both. Even here, even among those who believe they use her, Motion is unsettling. Hyacinth is her vessel and voice. Some of her retinue stand behind them, the rank and file soldiers, black-clad and utterly void of affect. People find them unsettling, too. And so they too need a voice. An Elect.

They are sickly already but still beautiful then, to those who did not know them four decades earlier. Their hair and scales are still bright. They stand out against the black military dress that is now customary for Motion’s retinue. Such a funny idea, that anything is customary. Apostolos changes so fast. Even Motion is like a child compared to her peers, they’ve come to realize.

Only the bravest stay around to greet them, after the ceremony. The grateful, whose homes and loved ones may have been saved by their efforts. The young, who do not know enough yet to do anything but wonder at them. And the proud, who measure accomplishments against them. Who think they could run as far.

Space is nothing-black outside the conference room where the first lines of the Pact of Necessary venture are being drafted. Looking through the windows, they could pretend it is the deep and twisting ink of Motion’s body. They come to meet under the auspices of the false Mirage, but it might be more accurate to say they are at Present. Here, Motion is fewer things: the ship they came in on, yes, but mostly just the ever-moving presence in Hyacinth’s spine and skull.

Hyacinth paces around the conference table, taking the laps at a speed that reveals their age. This is deliberate. The others think of them as a crumbling relic; let them. Cowardly, sniveling pups—that’s more Motion’s thought than their own. She’s engaged in some kind of debate with Past, the kind of silent, abstract thing that can only be understood by the Divine but is clearly making her furious.

It is strange to walk with their own legs. They are almost never outside of a mech, now.

At least here, in this illicit little gathering of elects, they don’t need to worry about presentability. They are all _off_ in their own ways, busy seeing a thousand futures or all the stars of the universe spread forth or simply moving, always moving. Gallica is the only one of them who seems truly present.

No two are alike, but all of them understand what the Divine does. What it demands, what it gives. No one here will think twice at their pacing while they speak.

If it were a matter of Dahlia alone, Motion and Hyacinth might have bolstered their ranks. Or they would have met on the battlefield instead. But-- “This is a symptom of a larger problem. The principality is growing stagnant. The same war with the Branched, eternal. Always in the same place. The indolent aristocratic infighting.” The proud superiority they speak with is theirs and Motion’s both. “If they will not move, we will. And then, once we are prepared, we will move them.”

“Well put, Grand Marshal.” Rye gives them a lazy salute. “Now let us show you where we’re moving to.”

This, then, is Space’s domain. A place for them, a vision, a map; showing the Scutum Centaurus arm.

A whole, open galaxy where they can plant the seeds of mutiny. Hyacinth sees the blackness of it writhing with her machines.

_You are slowing._

She is picking a fight and they both know it. Hyacinth kicks their legs up on the dashboard of the Pneuma. “Rude.” There’s not enough strength left in their body to dig their heels in the way they want to, but they know she will understand the familiar gesture. “After we just got you a nice new war. You’re spoiled.”

_And you are proud._

It’s their old quarrel again, the lines rehearsed with…something that is distinctly not warmth, but certainly familiarity. Ninety-nine years of this.

They laugh once, staccato and uncharacteristic. “You’ve given me much to be proud of.”

_Do not get sentimental on me. Keep moving._

Hyacinth stretches, their joints complaining. It would be wrong to say they are feeling their age, now. They have always felt it. Motion keeps them going, but does not dull the senses. She is honest with them. Under all the lies of the Principality, of Apostolos, of their own Pact—she alone is honest with them. Honest in her horror.

Ninety-nine years of it. They are proud of their service.


	2. keep it secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> clem/gucci, for the prompt kiss and tell/keep it secret. this is about expectations, and, of course, not talking about your feelings. warning for implied sexual content and discussion of like....anxieties around marriage and reproduction that are not necessarily a biological matter in the principality but can uncomfortably mirror this type of thing in our world.

“That’s not going to work.”

With cold cruelty, Gucci shoots down the third outfit of the hour.

Clementine scowls into the mirror. “I look amazing.” She hisses back, because she does. The suit is shimmering champagne gold against a stark white blouse, adorned with tiny pearls that match the ones on her veil and crown. She’s not being unreasonable. It is a very small, subtle crown. It is, in her opinion, quite restrained.

Gucci barely spares it another glance. “You look like a Kesh princess. That is _not_ going to improve anyone’s opinion of you.”

“Then they shouldn’t have invited a Kesh princess to their little ceremony.” Maybe the crown can go, she decides, tosses it carelessly to the ground.

“They didn’t. Gur Sevraq did.”

The invitation should have been comforting, really. It’s the sort of thing Clementine should be good at, has always been good at; the maze of social rituals that go into dazzling at a party. But like everything else with Millennium Break, the rules are all different, and she feels nothing so much as unbalanced. Like something is expected of her, but she can’t quite put her finger on what.

“Pick something for me, then, if you’re so good at this.” She snaps, shrugging off the jacket of her suit.

She’s never been nervous about changing in front of Gucci, not since they were kids. Not even now that their relationship has taken on this strange new dimension. So it’s not that making her wish for something to hide behind as she leaves the rest of her clothes on the floor. No, it’s the pleased, smug look that makes her feel, for a moment, exposed. Vulnerable and a little pathetic, not a princess but just some girl in her underwear sitting on the bed while Gucci takes her place at the wardrobe.

The matter of choosing clothing becomes suddenly far more interesting when Gucci is the one doing it. Clementine can’t resist laying at the edge of her bed, leaning over to try to see—what she’s going to choose, what’s provoking those thoughtful little sounds. Surely she wouldn’t pick something bad on purpose--

Gucci turns enough to roll her eyes. “Trust me, Clem.”

“Fine!” Sulkily, she rolls onto her back, hands folded in her lap. She can be patient. Of course she can be patient.

She manages for all of a minute. When she turns back over to peek again, Gucci is looking down, contemplating the length of red silk in her hands.

“Clementine,” she says so carefully, so politely. “This isn’t your color.”

It’s not. It’s a muted sort of blood red that shimmers subtly, fine little threads of copper woven through the fabric.

“No, it’s not.” She admits. _But I thought you might like it_. “But it was too beautiful to pass up. It never hurts to have a gift on hand.” Gucci’s birthday had been coming up, anyway.

Gucci nods, catching her meaning. “And so you dragged it all the way to Fort Icebreaker.”

“I wasn’t particularly thinking.”

“I’ll wear it tonight. If you don’t mind.” She already knows, of course, that Clementine doesn’t mind. So it must be some sort of pointed comment that she’s missing.

“Of course.” Clementine ignores it, waves her off. “I thought you were supposed to be choosing for me, not the other way around.”

“Now we’re even. If you’d stop being so nosy—” She turns away from the wardrobe, smiling, eyes glittering with a good idea. “Clem. Close your eyes and keep still.”

It’s a game they played as children often enough. She stands with her eyes closed and her spine straight as a sword, trying to recall her posture lessons. But it’s hard to breathe steady, to keep her shoulders even, to not just to look. It never takes her this damn long to dress herself. The temptation to open her eyes and take it into her own hands is unbearable.

It doesn’t help that Gucci is _playing_ with her. Sure, at first it could be accidental—the lingering brush of her fingers here, the drag of a hand there. It feels all the more vivid with her eyes closed, and it takes a great deal of effort for her not to flinch away, or lean closer, or something else embarrassing.

“Oh, I missed doing this.” Gucci hums and though she can’t see, Clementine can hear the precise angle of the smile she must have right now.

“I feel like a doll,” she complains, feeling the fabric pulled up and over her back. Feels Gucci’s quick fingers tying it, the weight of the knot at the base of her neck.

The knot pulls tight. “You’re a very good doll.”

Her eyes snap open at that, involuntarily. She hopes Gucci can’t feel her shiver. But if she does, she makes no mention of it.

“There,” she announces with an air of finality, straightening the dress one last time. “Go look. Tell me what you think.”

She stands with Clementine, an easy hand at her back as she walks hesitantly to the mirror—a towering, ornate thing that barely fit in her little room on Icebreaker.

Clementine considers herself.

It’s different. Not what she would normally choose. The fabric is less white and more a muted shade of grey. The little metal accents on her cuffs and neck catch the light and shine a faint blue and silver, placid as the surface of a lake. Beautiful without drawing attention. It gives her a silhouette of crisp, straight lines, makes her look taller.

She looks noble, but not ostentatious. It’s a good choice. It’s not something she could have done herself.

“I suppose you have a good eye for these things.”

“Of course I do.” Gucci smirks, proud, pleased with her handiwork. And with more than that, Clementine lets herself hope. “Here, let me—"

Gucci sets to adjusting her, pulling here and there at the dress, a button done and then undone. “Stop squirming,” she chastises, smiling, and places a steady hand on her chest. Her fingers are ever so light as she smooths over the fabric, but they could be solid metal for all they’re pinning her in place. Clementine does not stop squirming.

“You should hurry up,” she snaps, instead. If she’s blushing, well, it will only help the look. “We’re going to be late.”

They are, in fact, late. But at least it’s only fashionably so. By the time they make it onto deck the awkward preamble is mostly out of the way. The drinks have already started flowing. With a little smile Gucci mouths _champagne?_ and at her nod, disappears into the crowd.

It’s a warm night, the humid air making her grateful for the open back of her dress. Clementine doesn’t recognize the couple standing at the head of the deck, Gur Sevraq between them. They’re wearing the same sort of thing he usually is, flowing fabrics in yellow and blue and white draped over them. Gur is doing something with a piece of the cloth, tying it between them as he speaks to the assembly.

It seems, at first, fairly standard fare for a Gur Sevraq speech. Oh, progression, and freedom, and everyone running around together and whatnot. She tends to tune these out. Really, after the first one, they’ve stopped being impressive. Bored already, she looks over the crowd, searching for a flash of red.

But then the crowd is falling quiet and they're talking about that heretical thing again, the True Divine. How it watches over them now. How it blesses their union. How life is a progression, but not one we need undertake alone. How they have come to walk their paths together, and find some measure of freedom in this, in a bond ascribed not to empire but to mutual care and love.

It is, to Clementine, utterly bizarre. Of course, there’s always the complicated web of heirs that ties the Kesh nobility together, but most of those are the result not of marriage but a more specific form of matchmaking. Creating pieces to be traded around and threatened or warded or held hostage as needed, currency in a game she had struggled to understand at that age. Even the children who stood to inherit from two houses were typically only raised by one parent, like her. Not that you could really call it raising.

If she really thinks about it, she can count on one hand the number of people she knows who are actually married. It’s the sort of thing that’s relegated to people who never really had a chance of becoming important anyway. A little foolish. A little sad. And even those few relatives never had ceremonies like this. They’d just petition her mother for a permission, and that would be that.

It’s unpleasant to consider. She’s very thankful when Gucci returns bearing two glasses of champagne. Clementine does not wait for a toast to be called to begin.

Gucci considers her. “You’re awfully tense for a celebration.”

What little there is of a band starts playing, something slow and achingly sweet. The couple of honor start to dance. Poorly. Clementine cannot help but think they would be laughed out of even the most meagre ballroom.

But no one is laughing. It’s neither solemn nor raucous, but a strange sort of contentment that sweeps the room as people start to dance, in two and threes and groups, but never alone.

Gucci is moving before she can ask, which is good. Saves her the humiliation. It might be more humiliating, though, that she knows that they will gravitate toward each other like this. It has nearly always been this way. No matter the party, so long as Gucci was there she would always have a dance partner.

They orbit carefully for a moment then settle together. Clementine places her free hand on Gucci’s shoulder, a delicate weight.

It’s nothing like a real court dance. No steps, no grand meaning behind it. Just a gentle swaying in time. Gucci smiles, rests a hand in a completely appropriate and chaste position at Clementine’s waist. She takes to it well. Clementine thinks, completely unnecessarily, that she looks beautiful.

“Have you…done anything like this before?” She stumbles over what she means to ask even as her footwork is immaculate.

Gucci shrugs a little, the deep red fabric rippling over her shoulders. “I’ve been to weddings, but only official ones. You know. Asterist. May they strive to embody Commitment, and all that.”

Clementine blinks at her. “I’ve never seen that.”

“Well, of course not. Has anyone from House Kesh ever been married?” It’s a rhetorical question. Obviously not in recent memory.

“I doubt it.”

“You could be a trendsetter.”

The music changes, becomes something warm and languid as Clementine freezes. She can’t picture herself standing up there like the couple tonight. Certainly not among these people. So she tries, instead, to start in the throne room. Princept Clementine Kesh. Who is she surrounded by? At the end of the day, what room does she return to?

When she closes her eyes, there’s nothing. She can’t imagine.

She feels lightheaded. Well, champagne always hits her fast, it’s part of why she chooses it. “And why, aside from the obvious benefit of sending my mother to an early grave, would I want to do that?”

Her heels drag on the turn, bringing them closer together. Gucci takes advantage of the opportunity to lean in, her hand a gentle pressure that cannot be refused. Her head nearly on Clementine’s shoulder, they could be conspiring just as well as embracing. Still swaying in time.

“If you were Princept,” she says, playful and low in Clem’s ear, “You would need to secure a line of succession.”

Something clicks into place, then. Almost the same overwhelming sensation that she had felt sitting on the throne. The thrill and horror of doing something deeply transgressive ripples up through her spine. “Surely, lady Garantine, you have higher ambitions than consort.”

“Of course I do.” Her hand is at the small of Clementine’s back, in the place where her dress opens, tracing a slow pattern. “It would be a great benefit to us in finance and status. And you’d be tying your best military supporter to your name directly. You would be assured of my loyalty.”

She’s not really paying attention, couldn’t possibly do so if she wanted to. Gucci is always better at this kind of game than she is, can keep her composure in the face of so much wanting.

“Yes, well.” Clementine downs the rest of her champagne in a hurry. “I think the finer points of such an arrangement are best discussed in private.”

It doesn’t sit right with her when they’re slow and still like this. So much easier when they crash into each other with more fury than thought, handle it fast and hard and then be done with the situation.

The difficult part comes after. Clementine is never quite sure what to do—if she should dress or not, if she should say something, if she should invite Gucci to stay. If she should be doing anything at all. So they remain there together, uncomfortably silent, tangled in her blankets. It’s too hot to be under the covers, but she would feel too exposed, just laying there.

Her little room on Icebreaker barely fits the two of them. There is nowhere to turn where she doesn’t see or hear or feel her rival. She cannot avoid the sound of their breathing in the silence, or the nudge of Gucci’s leg against hers through the thin barrier of the sheet.

“Did you…” Clementine starts, unsure of what she’s trying to say. “Those things you were saying before. Were you…”

There’s an empty, horrible space as Gucci takes a moment to grasp her meaning. “Obviously not!” she dismisses, her voice warm and easy. “You don’t have to take everything so personally. You’re familiar with the concept of flirting, aren’t you?”

When Clementine doesn’t rise to the bait, she softens and curls closer. It’s not quite a hug, not even really holding. But it’s gentle enough, and that makes it worse. “Hey. I’m sorry if it bothered you—we can try something else, next time—”

“No, no,” she trips over herself, “it was fine. Um.” Fine does not begin to summarize it. Clementine fixes her gaze on the off-white ceiling, which doesn’t judge her. “It’s just strange to think about. My mother really would not be pleased.”

“If we had an heir, can you imagine?” Gucci laughs, soft against her back. It tickles. “She’d have us both killed.”

She should laugh, too. She should laugh at it, and not open her mouth.

“I don’t want children.” Spills out of her instead in a hurry, unable to keep the edge from her voice. “An heir. I mean. I don’t think I could—” Finally she manages to cut herself off, before she can say anything far worse. She feels nauseous, suddenly.

Gucci is quiet for what feels like a very long time. Then she moves, shifts so they’re no longer touching quite so closely. “That’s fine.” She says, her tone all falsely casual. “Plenty of people don’t.” Like she has absolutely no opinion on this, on Clementine saying this--

“I’m the only scion of Kesh.” She snaps, without really meaning to. “I would have to. If I were—when I am ruling, I mean. I would have to. Or the line will fall to fucking Whitestar or someone.”

“Clementine.” Gucci rolls over her in one fluid motion, catlike. She leans in to press a kiss to Clementine’s jaw. It’s less a comfort, more a distraction. “You don’t have to do anything. We’re on a stolen fortress in the middle of the ocean. You don’t have to do anything right now.” An echo of what she said on their first night here. _You don’t have to find the right words anymore._

She almost sounds like she really means it. But it’s not true, is it? Now more than ever, she has to do something, precisely the right thing. The difference is that she no longer understands the rules of the game. Only that something is expected of her. That had been the impetus behind this entire evening—that her presence was expected.

And without expectations there would be nothing to transgress.

“Yes, well.” She acquiesces, because that isn’t really what they were talking about. Better to let it go than sound hysterical or worse, risk saying something too real. Besides, it’s not worth picking a fight when Gucci is so ready to distract her. “I suppose…you’re right.” She tilts her head back in a gesture of surrender, revealing the vulnerable column of her throat to be kissed.

But the touch doesn’t feel thrilling anymore, has spilled over into something overwhelming. Clementine closes her eyes against it. She just keeps thinking. If it were true. If there were truly no expectations of her at all. What would she do? Where would she be?

Probably not here. Behind her eyes, there’s nothing. A vague, vanishing image of a throne. Of her bed. She can’t imagine.


	3. downtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> clem/gucci, broun/valence, and milli/sidra, for the prompt downtime. this is about good food and quiet moments.

1.

Cruciat is an old city, built on tradition more than convenience. And so it is perfect for its academics but ill-suited to commuters. There are sections of the city where the streets are all cobble for no reason but the sake of preservation. You have no idea what they might be preserving. There is no idea in your pretty head of what before might have looked like in this place. In your world, Kesh landed here one day and unfurled the city and the palace like a little paper craft.

Four canals cut the city, bringing wind and the smell of salt from the bay. In the winter the bridges will come down and the water will freeze over. Children and couriers alike will skate across them, through the falling snow. But today the water is full and beautiful, choppy from the efforts of the narrow boats racing upon it. You fixate on your friend among them, there at the front in a glossy red scull, unmistakable in her ease and elegance. She beats a clean line through the water. You watch the way the muscle of her arms moves as she rows hard—not straining herself, but fully engaged, the way she is with everything she does.

She’s not really your friend, exactly. You do not, as a general rule, have friends. It’s just that you’ve known her so long, and you just happened to be reassigned to this moon at the nearly the same time, and she’s just always like this. Call it, as your mother might, an arrangement of convenience. If you were in the race today, you know in your heart that one of you would come first and the other second.

You are watching your friend and not in the race yourself because you are not allowed to compete.

Oh, not that anyone would tell you so. But your mother is on-planet and so she would find out all too quickly and she would make her displeasure known. Rowing has ever been her least favorite of your hobbies. Perhaps that is why it was the one you stuck with. Gucci has ever been her least favorite of your peers. Perhaps that is why...

Cruciat’s canals weave in and out with the main streets. You walk at a clip for a while, following the race, trying to take some pleasure at the way people part for you. But you wish you were on the water. Even with the day growing steadily more overcast and raindrops emerging every few minutes to trouble you.

You pay an inordinate amount of money for hot chocolate from a stall to soothe yourself, like a child who needs convincing to come along. It’s not like what you have at the palace but it’s good, thick and warm and so redolent with cheap sugar that you can only take tiny sips.

What you really want is a little paper bag full of those fried pastry rings, but the oil will stain on silk, so you opt instead for honey bread from another stall. They come in tiles, stacked above your head, each sturdy piece imprinted with an ornate design. If you cared at all about the history of this place, you might remember that craftsmen work for years to carve the boards that give them their shape. You choose one inscribed with a sphinx. For good luck.

You take a bite as you cross the grand bridge that will mark the end of the race, supported on each side by great carved sphinxes, the shadow of their wings stretching over the water. The bread crumbles in your mouth, soft and warm. There’s jam inside, from the last fruits before winter. Cherry and apricot and redcurrant. It tastes like bright red. Like victory. Like the time you kissed your friend who isn’t really exactly your friend.

Leaning precariously over the side of the bridge, you consider breaking off a piece to save for her, later. She’ll be tired and hungry when she’s done. But you don’t owe her that.

She comes around the bend at the head of the pack, into that final stretch of canal. Headed right for you, right under the bridge you’re standing on. She sees you, of course. You’re dressed to be seen and besides, she knew you would be there. When you catch her eye there’s a spark there, and she grins, and suddenly her pace picks up and no one else ever had a chance. Her boat cuts through the water, a red blade slicing through the reflection of a coming storm.

You brush the crumbs off your coat and then scramble to keep up, to dash for the other side of the bridge so you can see her when she emerges. Arms held high, cheering, beautiful.

It rings out from somewhere, through some microphone: Gucci Garantine has won.

And you didn’t compete, but you know by the rules which govern your world that you’ve lost.

2.

It’s not hunger, exactly, that moves you. You eat, of course—you have to, but the running-out-of-fuel signals coming from your metal shell can’t really be compared to hunger. No, instead it’s the smell that draws you out of thought, out of your room into the lighthouse’s tiny kitchen. Though you can’t smell either, exactly, not like a flesh body would. But the vapor hits you, spice and salt and ingredients whose names you don’t know.

Something more familiar: Broun, still in their coveralls stained with whatever they’ve been working on today. They nod at you as you wander in, then turn their attention back to the beat-up saucepan in front of them. There are noodles in there, thin spiraling things simmering away.

“I didn’t know you cooked,” you say, carefully. They make a face—one you still haven’t quite figured out, somewhere between humor and pain.

“Uh, I don’t.” They respond, the little nervous huff of a laugh behind it. “This is—do you have instant food where you come from?”

“Not like this.” You say, because it would be too much to explain. You don’t even have food the way they do. You have ways-of-converting-matter-to-fuel, you have things-consumed-in-community-for-pleasure, but this is something else.

They give the noodles a little stir, the last of the liquid starting to disappear into steam. What’s left is a glistening red and orange color that coats each strand like a glossy jewel.

“That looks beautiful.” You say, earnestly, and they make that face again.

“You can have some if you want.” Apparently satisfied, they hit a button and the coil under their pan goes dark. “Sorry it’s not, like—authentic Apostolosian cuisine, or whatever. No squid ink here.”

Before you can assure them that you don’t mind, they’re separating the noodles into two bowls. Two that they already had ready. There’s a lot of food there. Way too much for them to eat on their own, a realization that flutters in the shell of you. They hoped you would come. Couldn’t bring themselves to offer, but hoped you would ask.

And you know, abruptly: Kal’mera Broun does not cook for other people, not usually. They do not share food. They take and make what they need for their own self, for their own solitary life. You do not know this in the way of knowledge from God or a thought read from the page of their mind. You just understand it. Because you know them.

A few months ago, you might have pointed this out as soon as it occurred to you, and embarrassed them. But a few months ago, they wouldn’t have shared their food with you.

“Wait a sec,” they stop you as you go to take one of the bowls. Their clever hands move quick. Almost too quick for you to follow the practiced motions, like when they’re fixing something. With a knife they make ribbons of something green that gives way with a satisfyingly crisp sound. “Get the full experience, c’mon.” They hold the shreds like confetti between their two cupped hands and let them fall, delicately—half in your bowl, half in theirs.

Your “thank you,” is too fervent, too earnest for something that is supposed to be casual. They turn sidelong for a moment, blushing slightly—“yeah, well,” muttered under their breath—and then they hide their expression by going for the noodles.

For all that they’re quick and methodical about it, watching Broun eat is a surprisingly intimate thing. They are not quite hasty about it, not the look of a wary animal guarding their meal but something more utilitarian than that. You can imagine them over the years, up late nights at some workbench, chopsticks in one hand and pliers in the other.

 _How is it?_ You ask, gently in their mind, so they won’t have to stop chewing to talk.

They do anyway, finish the mouthful with a firm and vicious bite before looking back up to you. “Aren’t you gonna eat some? I know you can taste.”

You can. And you will in a minute, but—“It’s not the same.” You realize, of course, that even among people whose bodies work more or less the same way, taste is always different. Maybe that’s what you’re asking about, really, because the curiosity they provoke in you has nothing to do with wondering at a different type of body.

“Huh.” They frown a little, considering you, the scales on their forehead bunching up into little mosaics. The steam from the noodles is fogging up your mask. “I’ll show you, I guess? Here—we can eat at the same time, so it’s like—"

You do as they bid, twirling up a little bundle of noodles and perching it before the mouth of your frame. Broun does the same, holding up the fingers of their other hand to count: 3, 2, 1. You feel a softness, an easing, the opening of the mental channels between you as they let you in.

Once again, they share with you.

3.

When you first boarded Icebreaker Prime, you hated the kitchens. These parts of Apostolosian cruisers are all the same, and it looks and sounds and smells like it came out of the shittiest kind of childhood memory, right down to the same utensils.

But over the months they’ve changed, as people have gone from serving others to serving each other. The equipment is no longer identical and utilitarian. People take and leave what they need. The old steel pot you’re using has a name scratched in at the bottom, but the scorch marks cover it too much to read.

You yawn, stretch, stir the pot again. You and Si’dra just got back from the latest outpost last night, so you’re supposed to be resting. But you need to do something to help. Somewhere else on the moon, someone is picking up a gun, or getting into a robot, and they’re going to fight and they’re going to die. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

And so you’re what, stirring broth into rice as if that’s going to protect anyone?

“That smells _way_ better than what we used to eat on base,” Si says, leaning over the pot. One of the dogs has followed her in, the black one with the torn ear, and even though you promised when you brought them home that you would keep them out of the kitchens, you decide not to say anything. “Where’d you learn to cook?”

“I’m kinda making it up as I go,” you admit, though it’s certainly better than your first attempts. There was never anyone to teach you.

You fall into an easy rhythm, then, the kind that’s been easier and easier lately. Si takes over the stirring while you work on other things, and while they do they talk about anything and everything. How the network is coming along, where si’s planning on taking you next. You add your thoughts, here and there, but mostly it’s just about hearing someone’s voice. The dog stays by your feet, looking up at you with big, sweet eyes.

It feels altogether too domestic. Like, how the fuck did you end up here? Like any second someone is going to drag you away, some hand or tendril ripping you out of this picture and back into the halls of Glory and say _stand straight, Ver, or your rations will be taken away again._

You take stock of what you have. The fresh greens that Thisbe delivered earlier, dried salted meat that was a local delicacy from the last little town you visited. You set to dicing them to bits. There might not be a lot, but it should add a good flavor. The food of Icebreaker has changed over the past few months as the stores empty and the farms flourish. Even so, you slip a little piece of meat to the dog.

It insists on licking your fingers clean, and you laugh a little at the weird feeling before you go to wash your hands again. “I saw that!” Si calls, fondly. When you step back to the stove, they nudge their shoulder against yours and something blooms in your chest.

You take stock of what you _have_. Friends and dogs and hands that are as good for stirring a pot as they are for holding a gun.

You haven’t clawed your way out, not yet. But maybe you’ve found something better. When you pick up a gun again—and you will, soon—it won’t be because anyone told you to. It will be to protect this. It will be to make sure more people come back alive in time for dinner.

“Can I?” Si’dra leans over the pot again, breathing in the smell of salt and herbs. It’s nearly done now, no longer bubbling, the liquid cooking off.

“Yeah, fuck it.” You shrug, rolling your shoulders back, and hand them a spoon. “It’s as good as it’s gonna be.” You try to play it cool, like you’re not watching their face intently, like you don’t even care if si likes it or not.

But you are. You watch their eyes go wide then turn to crescents. Even with their mouth full, si has a cute smile. “Fuck, Milli, this is good.” Si looks up at you with something like awe, offers you the spoon. “Seriously, try it.”

You try not to beam too much. Cool girl, remember? “I’m a woman of many talents.” And you lean down to taste from their spoon, and you don’t think about what that means.

The rice is velvety and rich, bright with herbs and lemon and greens. It melts away on your tongue like the first sunlight of freedom. Yeah, you’ve made something pretty good. Not perfect, but it’s good.


	4. silence/music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> signet/belgard, for the prompt silence/music. this is about grieving.

The battle is symphonic, each new screen and alert a clear and ringing note. The silk straps around her thrum low tones as she pulls at them.

_They marked scars of light in pitch; born in fiercest purpose, and beheld as the signet sealed upon our pact…_

When Belgard calls her name it is the only thing that sounds quiet. Signet makes an abbreviated noise in acknowledgement, pulls in another display. Another person in the fleet. Another note in the song. Something crashes against the outermost layer of Belgard’s hull, rocking them both. The straps pull taut.

_They marked scars of light in pitch; born in fiercest purpose, and beheld as the signet sealed upon our pact!_

“I hear you,” she tries to soothe, but her chest feels tight. It is so loud in here. There are so many of them. It’s not stopping.

Another shot slams into them, and the sound of it exploding is so harsh that she only hears _Scars, Purpose, Signet!_

 _“What?!”_ She calls back in the voice that is shared only between them. The displays are singing out with urgency.

_They marked scars of light in pitch; born in fiercest purpose, and beheld as the signet sealed upon our pact--_

The noise falls away. “Don’t,” Signet moves her arm like a scythe, sweeping the alerts to the side. “you dare. Don’t even suggest that.”

 _Signet._ Belgard sings to her. The silks wrap around her. Cocoon her. _I love you._

The room they put her in on Séance is sterile and quiet. She cannot hear what might be going on outside, but she can feel the stillness of it. The fleet is safe, for now. The fleet is safe, because—

“Belgard,” she sobs aloud, her voice raw and broken.

No one ever comes to report to her, to tell her what happened. What came out of that fight. They do not need to. She knows the only thing that matters. She does not feel the moment that it happens, but she knows. In a way it is worse that she does not feel it happen. At least then she could have, in some part, died with Belgard.

The bedding they have given her is clean and white. Signet buries her face in it and screams for Belgard without making any sound.

They are observing her, certainly, but Signet does not know or in any way care what they will think of her behavior. She wants to scream until her throat bleeds. She wants to unmake herself. She should not be. They cannot fathom what she is, now, and neither can she.

Someone brings her food. She does not touch it. A message is delivered, from the Cadent. She does not read it.

 _Belgard?_ She calls out in the echoing space of her mind, like she has every moment since she left, searching for the familiar strand between them.

There is no response. It’s so quiet.

In Contrition’s Figure they have her in simulations. Alternate pasts, possible futures.

In this one Signet rests her head so gently, so carefully upon smooth gold metal. She feels silk at her fingertips.

And she begins to play. The strings are not really silk, the body of her harp is only wood. But the motion is familiar, the pull and caress and release of each strand. The weight of it presses against her shoulder and she presses her cheek against the wood in turn, seeking some kind of presence.

But it’s wrong. There’s no echo behind the sound, no information in it. No love. It’s playing without an audience—without even the audience of her own self. The sound moves through her ears but does not touch her heart.

The harpist is both her favorite and least favorite of the alternatives they have presented her with. She has taken to it so quickly. She has such perfect control, such excellent technique. And she can imagine, just as easily, this empty other life. Where she died, as people do, hundreds of years ago. Where there was never any ceremony, and she was never named Signet, and she never heard the voice of love in her head. Where she might have helped people in her own little way, but she never knit them back together, never shielded them, never knew their names and their first memories and their favorite flowers and the things they thought of when they prayed.

If Contrition were still here, she thinks a little bitterly, it wouldn’t be like this. They would understand—that she has failed, but not in the way they think—

The strings thrum perfectly under her hands, with no warmth.


End file.
